Hertz Giveth, Hertz Taketh Away

Hertz Giveth, Hertz Taketh Away For years, I’ve hated all rental car companies for forcing me to scramble and find a gas station to fill up on the way to returning a car at the airport or get faced with an insane refueling charge. I never understood why one smart company didn’t decide to just do away with that moronic policy, figure out another way to make a profit, market the heck out of it, and endear themselves to customers. Finally, Hertz jumped in a few months ago with just that. Return a car without refueling? No problem. A modest $5 surcharge and market rate for the actual gas required solves the problem. Brilliant! They were even marketing it to their customers in-car and online. The last time I rented, I returned the car with 3/4 of a tank and was handed an extra $35 or so on my bill for refueling at $7.99/gallon. I asked what was going on. The check-in clerk told me “Oh we stopped doing that new refueling program. It’s too bad – all our customers loved it. You should say something about it to someone higher up.” Bad enough to quietly discontinue a program like […]